Archiving my Twitter, Facebook and other social network activity
Link: The Giants of California: How Redwoods and Whales Got So Big
It isn’t happenstance that California and the waters off our coast are home to these giants. As the new exhibit explains, bigness emerges partly from the particulars of life here – the ocean currents and our famous fog.
Surprisingly simple charts of how consistent major cities’ street layouts are based on orientation.
You can see a stark difference between cities that grew organically over centuries and those (mostly in the US) that were established after grids became popular.
https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/charlotte-nc-has-americas-messiest-street-grid
If no one has ever survived the Fire Swamp, how did its oddly specific dangers become common knowledge?
@dantebrevity I want to add something to make it FOCUS, but I have to admit FOCU works well on its own!
I think it’s been about 2 weeks since I last logged into FB. Every email or other notification they send me just reminds me how long it’ll take to catch up.
Seriously, what’s the opposite of FOMO?
@Einahpets I haven’t been back to SDCC since 2014, though I’ve been to several medium-sized cons. I’m starting to miss it.
Here’s hoping you get to do a significant amount of what you’re aiming for!
An article on a recent incident where a college student died from peanut allergy got me thinking: most news stories about people dying from #anaphylaxis are about kids or teens. You rarely hear about a 40-year old or even 30-year-old dying from a #foodallergy. It happens (which is why I still carry an EpiPen everywhere), just not as often.
I couldn’t find any solid numbers, but wrote up some speculation in my blog: https://hyperborea.org/journal/2018/07/age-food-allergy-death/
It occurs to me that the impending start of #SDCC is probably another factor in why I started thinking about this, as it’s coming up on 5 years since my “adventure” leaving Comic Con in an ambulance due to a peanut-laced mocha from a nearby cafe. I could’ve been one of those rare cases in my late 30s.
Half-following the build up to #SDCC. I haven’t been to #ComicCon since 2014, though I’ve been to WonderCon & Long Beach every year. The first year I couldn’t get tickets I shrugged. It’s exhausting, and there are other cons. I didn’t even try this year or last. But now I find I’ve started to miss it.
In the past 2 weeks I have had to patch both of my bike tires and replace one of my son’s tires. (And he’s only been riding a month.) Some plant along the local bike path produces seeds with thorns that we keep running over.
I spent yesterday’s ride (after fixing both our bikes) looking at all the plants, trying to figure out which ones produced the thorns. No luck.
So I searched onlineby describing the seeds. Looks like sandburs, and the plants do look familiar.
I’ll be on the lookout.
There are a zillion Starbucks in walking distance of work, and one Coffee Bean. I generally prefer the Coffee Bean, but it’s got a TV that’s *always* showing cable news. Even muted, it’s a job to ignore it, and sometimes it seems like it adds back as much stress as the walk and coffee cuts down.
Weird, I was just talking about this a few days ago.
When Researchers Used IHOP to Determine if Kansas Is Flatter Than a Pancake via @atlasobscura
@MicroSFF Is there a tool to cancel worries in progress to allow this patch to install? I’m not prepared to reboot the system.
7YO just told me he was going to write something down with his “epic pen.”
I love that this kid understands puns.
@Einahpets Same here. A lot of times I pull up navigation long enough to see which of two routes is going to be slower, then turn it off.
But I do use it when I’m trying to get somewhere else after work, and since I’d rather avoid the freeway during rush hour, it keeps trying to send me on these zigzag paths.
I used to follow them, but then I’d see other cars in front of me clearly doing the same thing and realized I was contributing to a bigger safety problem.
Cool: A simulation of what a 22 degree halo *during* a total solar eclipse would look like. It turns out it’s not just the brightness that would differ, because the corona’s a ring, not a disc!
Double the fun: Appearance of the 22° halo during a total solar eclipse – Halo Phenomena
At the Arbeitskreis Meteore (AKM) spring meeting in March 2018, we discussed an observation made by Jörg Strunk during the “US eclipse” from August 21st, 2017: A 22° halo was visible in cirrus clouds around the sun up to around half a minute before the onset of totality. Similar observations…
Another in the long series of things I never thought I’d have to say:
“The Death Star needs to stay outside the bathroom.”
I’ve finished part 3 (of 5) of #LesMiserables, which ends on a solid cliffhanger.
Something I realized is a major difference from the last time I read it: I’m looking ahead for connections, not just backward. Since It’s only been 5 years since the last time, I remember more of the book (and not just the musical).
I’ve also started listening to a weekly podcast that’s also going through the book this year, which has been fascinating: https://readlesmis.libsyn.com/
Re: The Book of Dust
It’s been a long time since I read the original trilogy, so I had to look up a lot of the references.
The things that struck me most were the changes in understanding how Lyra’s world works: The supernatural elements encountered in the flood, which went far beyond what I remember, and the discovery that the Magisterium’s solid grip is so recent.
(That and the migraine auras. I’ve never encountered a character who experiences them, and the descriptions were spot-on.)
@noelle Further complicated by the “so-and-so liked…” notices in the news feed on FB/birdsite making them a low-key boost as well, making the waters even muddier.
@bridgebury I have a few books that I return to over & over. ATM I can only think of Les Mis (since I’m reading it now) & the Earthsea series, but there are a few others. I’m amazed at all the stuff I missed or forgot in Les Mis, especially since I blogged the entire previous read through 5 years ago.